Some authors excelled in this species of literary artifice. The Italian
Doni dedicated each of his letters in a book called _La Libraria_, to
persons whose name began with the first letter of the epistle, and
dedicated the whole collection in another epistle; so that the book,
which only consisted of forty-five pages, was dedicated to above twenty
persons. This is carrying literary mendicity pretty high. Politi, the
editor of the _Martyrologium Romanum_, published at Rome in 1751, has
improved on the idea of Doni; for to the 365 days of the year of this
Martyrology he has prefixed to each an epistle dedicatory. It is
fortunate to have a large circle of acquaintance, though they should not
be worthy of being saints. Galland, the translator of the Arabian
Nights, prefixed a dedication to each tale which he gave; had he
finished the "one thousand and one," he would have surpassed even the
Martyrologist.
Mademoiselle Scudery tells a remarkable expedient of an ingenious trader
in this line--One Rangouze made a collection of letters which he printed
without numbering them. By this means the bookbinder put that letter
which the author ordered him first; so that all the persons to whom he
presented this book, seeing their names at the head, considered they had
received a particular compliment. An Italian physician, having written
on Hippocrates's Aphorisms, dedicated each book of his Commentaries to
one of his friends, and the index to another!
More than one of our own authors have dedications in the same spirit. It
was an expedient to procure dedicatory fees: for publishing books by
subscription was then an art undiscovered. One prefixed a different
dedication to a certain number of printed copies, and addressed them to
every great man he knew, who he thought relished a morsel of flattery,
and would pay handsomely for a coarse luxury. Sir Balthazar Gerbier, in
his "Counsel to Builders," has made up half the work with forty-two
dedications, which he excuses by the example of Antonio Perez; but in
these dedications Perez scatters a heap of curious things, for he was a
very universal genius. Perez, once secretary of state to Philip II. of
Spain, dedicates his "Obras," first to "Nuestro sanctissimo Padre," and
"Al Sacro Collegio," then follows one to "Henry IV.," and then one still
more embracing, "A Todos." Fuller, in his "Church History," has with
admirable contrivance introduced twelve title-pages, besides the general
one, and as many particular dedications, and no less than fifty or sixty
of those by inscriptions which are addressed to his benefactors; a
circumstance which Heylin in his severity did not overlook; for "making
his work bigger by forty sheets at the least; and he was so ambitious of
the number of his patrons, that having but four leaves at the end of his
History, he discovers a particular benefactress to inscribe them to!"
This unlucky lady, the patroness of four leaves, Heylin compares to
Roscius Regulus, who accepted the consular dignity for that part of the
day on which Cecina by a decree of the senate was degraded from it,
which occasioned Regulus to be ridiculed by the people all his life
after, as the consul of half a day.
The price for the dedication of a play was at length fixed, from five to
ten guineas from the Revolution to the time of George I., when it rose
to twenty; but sometimes a bargain was to be struck when the author and
the play were alike indifferent. Sometimes the party haggled about the
price, or the statue while stepping into his niche would turn round on
the author to assist his invention. A patron of Peter Motteux,
dissatisfied with Peter's colder temperament, actually composed the
superlative dedication to himself, and completed the misery of the
apparent author by subscribing it with his name. This circumstance was
so notorious at the time, that it occasioned a satirical dialogue
between Motteux and his patron Heveningham. The patron, in his zeal to
omit no possible distinction that might attach to him, had given one
circumstance which no one but himself could have known.